On the pulse

At the RCN Congress in Liverpool this week, some of the most pressing issues facing the nursing profession were on the agenda. In particular, two stories covered by Nursing Times highlighted the need for greater awareness of the value of some nursing roles.

“We’re [Labour] fighting for a Britain that deals with its debts responsibly, without shredding our NHS and vital public services…. The Tories have damaged the NHS in these five years. Give them five more and the NHS as we know it just won’t be there, said Mr Miliband.

His speech follows a document published yesterday by Labour, which lays out how NHS standards have allegedly fallen under the Conservatives and how Labour intends to “save” the service.

“The Tories are already breaking half of the waiting time guarantees to patients enshrined in the NHS Constitution”

Douglas Alexander

It added that nurse staffing levels have failed to keep up with increased demand from a growing population, with the number of nurses per head in England having fallen from 5,364 whole time equivalent nurses in May 2010 per million people to 5,182 in May 2014.

The document argues that this has led to a shortfall of almost 10,000 nurses – part of a staffing crisis across the NHS which is contributing to falling standards.

It pointed to lower numbers of district nurses and modern matrons in 2014 compared with 2010, and highlighted that nurse training places have been cut over the same period – by around 7,000 commissions.

The proposed Time to Care Fund – with its annual £2.5bn investment – would help to address these problems in the future, according to the dossier.

It also stated that Labour would introduce other improvements such as giving patients more input over local services changes, and creating a new fund for cancer treatment to provide better access to drugs, radiotherapy and surgery.

Mr Alexander said: “The Tories are already breaking half of the waiting time guarantees to patients enshrined in the NHS Constitution, including on cancer and A&E.

“A Tory second term would put us on course for ever-longer waits for patients because they have no plan to give the NHS the cash it needs and want to take public spending back to 1930s levels,” he added.

“That is why the NHS is on the ballot paper at this election,” he said. “And that is why we will work morning, noon and night to save it.”

The Labour dossier also used a recent Nursing Times survey to highlight the “real nursing pressures in the NHS”.

It quoted our survey published in February 2014, which found more than half of nurses believed their ward or unit remained dangerously understaffed a year after the Francis report.

A Conservative spokesman said: “We can only have a strong NHS by staying on the road to a stronger economy.

“Our long-term economic plan has meant we are able to increase the NHS budget in the next parliament to help fund [NHS England chief executive]Simon Stevens’ Five Year Forward View. This plan will help meet growing demand, give the public better access to GPs and improve preventative care - and it is widely supported in the NHS.”

He also pointed to recent workforce statistics from the Health and Social Care Information Centre , which show that, as of September 2014, there were 2,721 more nurses, midwives and health visitors than there were in May 2010.

Labour is accusing David Cameron of misleading the public over his plans to privatise the NHS in England and call for contracts putting the service “up for sale” to be frozen until after the general election.

More than 160,000 nurses have quit the NHS before retirement since 2010, an investigation by the Labour Party has revealed today.

Readers' comments (19)

Anonymous6 January, 2015 0:32 am

When will everyone wake up and smell the roses....when Labour left power there was no money,whoever came in had to do something.Unfortunatly this is not a political issue....the problem lies with the NHS itself...the waste of money all through the system...no central purchasing of bulk items....too many top brass doing jobs that are what?....too many Matrons,they are like confetti in some hospitals.....too many navy blue dresses running around doing nothing on some wards......even worse a range of newly qualified staff nurses who think that touching a patient is beneath them.....discharge lounges that have qualified staff on them and then arrange for patients to be sent home direct from the wards via private ambulances and taxi's.People who call themselves nurses all over social media saying what a hard day they have had whilst sat on a train with expenses coming back from another conference etc...Oh i could go on and on and on,but what is the point,unless we put our own house in order why should we be allowed to complain about others.I have 35 years experience and am sad to admit that all the above is a true picture....

even staff seem to be fighting a political battle and pitting against one another according to which party they support. it is pathetic and dangerous. you should be concentrating on the well being of your patients. you could also be one one day and lying in a hospital bed dependent on the care of specialist staff is not a game of politics! grow up and show your true professional colours before you negligently lose even more patients through putting your own interests first.

why oh why doesn't DC and his well paid cabinet come and do a couple of shifts with staff. Then discuss what they feel about their pay, staffing levels, client care and the low morale and how this affects the staff and patients alike.
He clearly does not care and activley wants to demolish the NHS if he did he would roll up his sleeves and give us some of his pay increase.
Well done DC

Cameron was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and has had everything handed to him on a plate. Are you surprised that his main goal is making the richer richer and the poor poorer, we are vermin to him. We all know what needs to be done to take the strain off our services, finances etc. Australia and Canada have the right idea England should take a leaf out of their book. The problem we have really is that there is not anyone worth voting for and people just become complacent with their vote. I am guilty of this myself but I know one thing my tick will not be in conservatives box again.

Yes, there was no money when Labour left office. What do you think the Tories did? That's right, spent £3billion (that's three thousand million) quid on a pointless reorganisation, not to improve care but on an ideological crusade to remove the nhs from being a provider of healthcare.

If they were so worried about lack of money do you think the Tories would have spent that three thousand million on a reorganisation?

From what I understand, the NHS isn't exempt from TTIP, despite my local Tory MP reassuring me 'in writing' that it won't affect the NHS. At least Lockheed Martin, the world's biggest arms firm, have with withdrawn from a 10-year deal to run support services for every GP surgery in the country. However, this £1 billion contract is still out for tender, the biggest in 66 years.Other firms interested in bidding include KPMG, Serco and G4S, no NHS organisation was present in the meeting hosted by NHS England.
The NHS, in my opinion from what I have read, will have it's services tendered out to so many different organisations for different aspects of the service, hence become privatised! .... but, will these large corporate organisations talk to each other, I doubt it.

A scenario repeated across the NHS: My wife is a night shift nurse on a 28 bed ward, meant to be short stay but filled with confused patients in for weeks and months. One trained and two auxiliary until recently covering the night shift. Incidents resulted in an increase to two trained but due to ward closures and another bring mothballed, and a reduction in staffing levels, a day ward is frequently opened 24/7 with the additional trained staff nurse being taken to nurse a ward full of patients unknown to them. No I me to take breaks, mountains of risks assessments and paperwork. Agency staff necessary to keep wards open at huge expense, often flown up country and accommodated locally on shirt term contracts. Progress...? Time to wake up and smell the coffee!

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